The ground beneath digital marketers' feet is shifting, and nowhere is this more obvious than in Google search returns. The SERPs are changing. The way information is being found and consumed online is evolving. Are you ready to ride the storm?
For decades, Google has been the unshakeable bedrock of almost every content strategy, a reliable organic source of web traffic for those who could write to master its ever-evolving algorithm.
But now the future of that traffic seems in question.
The seismic rise of Large Language Models (LLMs) and Google's own embrace of AI-driven search are triggering a fundamental change in how we all find information online.
This is accelerating a 'zero click' trend that’s been happening for decades as Google looks to consolidate its place as an answer engine, rather than a search engine.
And the net result is fewer visits to your website:
Right now, that trend is being turbo-charged by Google’s move to AI overviews:
The question for many marketers is no longer "how do we rank in the SERPs?" but WTF happened to the SERPs anyway?
In the world of AI overviews, Google doesn't simply point to answers in highlighted snippets like it did before. It doesn't encourage deeper exploration of expert websites to get your answers.
Instead, it aggregates and summarises current thinking around a topic in a way that often makes clicking through to websites completely unnecessary.
The average size of the AI overview pane has increased over the last year. As a result, it has pushed the traditional blue links of the SERP returns further below the fold for most people, fundamentally changing the way we interact with search returns.
In this new world of search, brands' chances of receiving a prominent link to their site or webpage following a Google search have significantly diminished.
And now, the next phase of the search revolution is imminent.
Google is currently rolling out "AI Mode" in the US, promising an even more profound change in the way we discover and consume information online.
AI Mode represents a fully conversational, AI-powered search experience (as modelled in Gemini) that users can toggle to on the search page for deeper explorations of topics.
(Source: Zapier)
In AI mode, readers can engage in a deep dialogue with the search engine. Users can ask complex, multi-faceted questions and receive synthesised, AI-generated answers directly in their results window.
AI Mode breaks queries down into subtopics and generates additional searches based on those subtopics to provide a more specific answer.
This ‘fanning out’ technique is different from Google’s traditional search approach and allows for yet more predictive and helpful sculpting of responses.
Ultimately, it prompts and offers more and more relevant details as users' research develops.
Google says AI Mode will soon draw on a user’s search history to further personalise answers. Customers will also be able to link it to other Google apps, like Gmail, to interact with the world on your behalf.
We are soon going to witness personalised, agentic AI, capable of planning and organising our lives and purchases in real time!
So, if Google’s AI can surface answers instantly and even guide supplier selection on our behalf, where does that leave brands whose growth has relied on educating their audience and earning trust through informative content?
Many brands may be thinking, in the age of the AI revolution, there is no longer good reason to create content anymore:
“We’ll look back at this era and think ‘wow, it was weird how every SaaS company had a library of rehashed Wikipedia content… But they are not essential: They are a product of specific incentives created by one company (Google), and those incentives are disappearing.”
— Ryan Law, Director of Content Marketing at Ahrefs
But commentators who talk about the death of educational content are really suggesting we all need to do better in terms of depth and originality.
"What’s actually dying is unread content. Lazy listicles. Keyword soup. Content no one would miss. Content that teaches, entertains, or earns trust is on the rise… AI can assist, but it can’t replace that kind of connection.”
— Martin Jeffrey, Strategic Marketing Lead (LinkedIn)
A recent SEMrush study revealed that only 30% of AI prompts align with traditional search intents.
The other 70% reflect emerging behaviours: problem-solving, brainstorming, and exploratory queries.
For contract manufacturers, this signals a shift in what Google - and AI tools in general - will likely favour: content that goes beyond basic answers.
In this world, standard FAQ-style content won’t cut it.
Instead, brands need to create material that reflects the real-world decision-making of their audience - messy, nuanced, and consultative.
“The real risk isn’t AI replacing content — it’s people believing that content has no future… AI still needs fuel. And that fuel is original thinking, lived experience, and clarity that doesn’t come from scraping old blog posts."
— Martin Jeffrey, Strategic Marketing Lead (LinkedIn)
It’s worth noting that while brands have seen less traffic sent to their sites since AI overviews have come in, conversion on the best sites has been unaffected and sometimes increased.
This suggests the traffic Google is sending to brands is much more targeted and intentful than it was before.
And helping brands be found is still the stated objective of Google CEO Sundar Pichai:
"AI helps us deliver higher-quality referrals, right?... People... have much higher likelihood of finding what they’re looking for. They’re exploring. They’re curious. Their intent is getting satisfied more. So that’s what all our metrics show."
The real challenge for brands, then, is ensuring both our pages and our brand are cited, not scraped.
AI thrives on facts. But it lacks perspective. In a world of homogenised summaries, content with a strong POV - opinionated, original, rooted in experience - cuts through the noise and is more likely to be cited, not just scraped.
As Mike King explains in this article from iPullRank, covering multiple angles and offering unique insights helps position your page as a vital source in the reasoning chain, increasing both visibility and click-throughs in AI Mode.
AI overviews need structured, nuanced, domain-rich content to feed their models. Superficial SEO fluff won’t make the cut. Focus on expertise depth, detailed insights, and context-rich analysis.
There’s nothing wrong with educating your audience, but make sure you share things that others aren’t. And make sure the voices of your experts and customers are always present in those descriptions.
If your manufacturing company works in a unique way to meet particular needs or answer deep-seated problems in the industry, make sure you tell that story in different ways across your digital real estate.
AI can effortlessly summarise plain text, but it favours structured and visual content like charts, tables, videos, and infographics when building richer, more informative responses.
In fact, SEMrush found that pages with visual elements were 38% more likely to be featured in AI-generated search results than those relying solely on text (SEMrush AI Search Trends Report, 2024). If you want to be surfaced — and cited — in AI Mode, multimedia isn’t optional. It’s an edge.
Skip the surface-level stuff. Build content rooted in your real-world manufacturing experience. Create a new spin for your traditional educational content with more emphasis on evidence and unique insight:
Visual step-by-step guides (e.g. “How we reduced setup time by 40% using modular tooling — with video demo”)
Use-case case studies (e.g. “How [Client Name] scaled output with our custom assembly solution”)
Side-by-side comparisons (e.g. “Manual vs. semi-automated welding — where each works best”)
First-person walk-throughs (e.g. “What our line lead learned from trialling cobots for 30 days”)
Expert roundups (e.g. “5 plant managers share tips for reducing unplanned downtime”)
Listicles with context (e.g. “7 lean upgrades we applied at [Your Company] — and the ROI on each”)
This kind of content ranks because it’s experience-backed, part of highly relevant topic clusters - and packed with specific context. And this is exactly what AI search models prioritise when deciding what to feature.
“Does that mean we don’t create the educational type stuff? No, I don’t think so, but it should more like... ‘here’s how you do it with us’ rather than ‘here’s how you do it, and we happen to sell a thing that helps.’”
— Tommy Walker, Founder of The Content Studio, LinkedIn
Don’t leave your destiny to the SERPs. Now is the time to reinvest in email newsletters, community platforms, and owned media channels where you can engage your audience directly - no algorithmic gatekeepers required.
The quality of your content and how it develops relationships at each stage of the buyer's journey is more important than a hundred hits from unconvertible visitors:
“Content will remain innately valuable for helping potential customers. Some topics are worth writing about, even if Google rewards them with zero search traffic... Help customers use your product to get useful outcomes.”
— Ryan Law, Director of Content Marketing at Ahrefs, LinkedIn
As the great marketing expert Rory Sutherland has predicted, ultimately, in the B2B world we will all be briefing AI to help select suppliers and service partners, without the need to trawl the internet ourselves.
So, as an exercise, imagine you are your buyer persona. Ask ChatGPT or AI Mode to create a list of suppliers for the services you supply.
If you’re not on the list among your competitors, you really need to work out why.
If you’ve echoed your ICP’s priorities and pain points correctly in your prompt, you SHOULD be there. If not, you’ve probably revealed where some of your most serious content and messaging gaps are.
As the focus moves away from building generic top-of-funnel content, it’s clear the opportunity is to create more bottom-of-funnel content that speaks of real customers' experiences with your brand and the specific problems you have solved for them.
From these stories, case studies and expert views, Google will be able to see and recommend your company with much more authority, as part of their personalised search returns.
Google isn’t stealing your traffic, despite how it might feel. Instead, it's leading your customers to your brand in more targeted ways.
This isn’t the end of content marketing. It’s the beginning of something far more selective, strategic, and - yes - creative.
The winners will be those who earn the mention and own their narrative beyond the feed.